Booking Tauck with Chase Sapphire Reserve
I booked a Tauck tour through Chase Travel with Chase Sapphire Reserve for the first time. Under the recently modified card rewards I get 8X points (worth 8% cash back, or 16% if used for certain airlines). When the card benefits changed there was some concern about booking through Chase Travel discussed in this forum, so I thought I'd share my experience.
- Tours can't be booked online, you have to call the Chase Travel 800 number.
- The travel agent that helped me was clearly American, no foreign call centers to deal with. They are open 8am to 8pm weekdays and 4am to 4pm weekends. After one call that got dropped before I reached an agent, I got right through to an agent.
- The agent had to call Tauck to make the booking. I'm not sure if this was because it was limited availability, because it involved choosing a cruise cabin. or all Tauck tours have to be booked this way. In any case, there was a lot of back and forth and time on hold. I'm not sure of how long it took, but it was over an hour. Plan accordingly.
- I was able to get the Gift of Time.
- While I was still on the phone, I got two emails from Chase: one with the standard Chase Travel receipt, and one with more details including the GOT day.
- The trip also showed up on Upcoming Trips page in my Tauck account while I was still on the phone.
- I will need to call Chase Travel again before the final deadline to make my final payment.
All in all, I had no real problems booking through Chase Travel, other than it taking longer than booking directly. The reward points certainly make the effort worth the time. The Sapphire Reserve card is expensive ($795 annual fee), but if you take at least one tour a year, the rewards make it worth the fee. There are many other benefits including $10.000 per year per traveler travel insurance.
Just a note: I have no association with Chase other than being a customer.
Comments
I have the Chase Reserve card but I also have a travel agent that I've worked with for a lot of years and I'm not going to leave her - so the new Chase "benefits" don't do much for me.
Me neither. I’ve had the same travel agent for 20+ years. She and her staff are true blue. I can email her with a question at 10:00 pm and she get back to me as soon as she can. I’ve had an emergency once and had to get back to the states, and she orchestrated everything in a flash. I did not have to be concerned.
Sounds like they are just a glorified order taker that does not give much advice or value added. As an example, I much prefer working with an agent/agency that reaches out to me before final payment to remind me, confirm the payment source and then make the payment on the chosen day. Back to packing for Northern India and Nepal. Happy holidays to all my fellow online Tauckers and thanks for your help advice this past year.
The booking agent gets a commission, and it looks like Chase is after that, in addition to the big yearly charge for the card. They give you a lot of points for using them but if you don't use them, it doesn't seem like it's worth having the card.
On another note, and not to sound snarky, but if one can afford these trips trips (often more than once a year), one can afford the perks of these cards when used wisely.
I subscribe to ‘The Points Guy’ so I do know something about the credit card game. That being said, I only use my Aadvantage card. It is the top tier card, and includes the Admirals Club, and we also get access to the Flagship Lounges. I don’t have the personality for chasing the card benefits. When I call Tauck or American using my. special number, they answer the phone, and they take care of business fairly quickly. I actually have a number of benefits at AA that I don’t use because of the way I book tickets. Cards with insurance are not a factor cuz I book Tauck insurance, or other private insurance when I am traveling with another company.
The problem is that if you use your own travel agent, there aren't many perks that you can take advantage of. You get 8x points for travel booked through them, 4x points for hotels booked through them, and other credits I don't used, such as Lyft and DoorDash.
Other than that, you get 1x points. We used to get 3x points on travel charged to the card. That's travel charged through any channel, directly with Tauck (for example) or through a travel agent.
The new plan for the card isn't very valuable unless you book directly through them.
So, with all the points you are all getting, how do you use your points?
We have two main cards and have to have a third one just for shopping at Costco which gets us Marriott points. We certainly get quite a few free nights at Marriott hotels, often in New York and we stay in Philly with them when we perform our show there every year.
We use Amex platinum points for part paying for flights or hotel stays and use most of the Amex perks,
We accrue quite a lot of American Airlines points these days, so have had an increasing number of free flights, our upcoming Tauck New Zealand is all points on business class.
The Points Guy and other ‘experts’ always stress not to keep lots of points for too long, they could be stopped any time, reduced in value or maybe even taxed, who knows.
You can’t use points to book your flights through Tauck.
Back in the day, you could exchange Amex points for either $500 or $1000 vouchers to use to pay for Tauck tours. Doesn’t sound much now, but back in the day when tours were say $3000 , that kind of range, it was a big saving.
One way I use them is for payment on Amazon - I can pay for things I order with points. I used to cash them in for credit for purchases on the card but I haven't seen that offered in a while.
Good idea Mike if it works for you. I’m sure those who figure out point values will chip in and say which ways to use them are the best bang for your buck.
Okay, based on the comments I will offer further comments.
The only reason to book through Chase Travel is for the points. The points can be taken in cash and equate to 8% cash back. However, with some airlines, you can get double the value when booking through Chase Travel (equivalent to 16% cash back!). I only use my redemptions for the double point airlines. It works out that if you use them for single value redemptions, you are better off taking the cash and spending it on the airfare, since you only get new points on cash spent and not points spent.
No other card I know of gives high multiple points for tours. Most of the other elite travel cards (Amex and Cap One) only give extra points for hotels and flights.
Let's say you book one tour per year. Assume the tour costs $15,000 for two people (conservative for Tauck these days). There are commonly available cash back cards that get you 2%. So, booking with Chase Travel on the Sapphire Reserve card gets you a minimum 6% more or 14% more if you are able to use the points for double value airfare. That's minimum of $900 in extra rewards and $2100 if you use the points for double value airfare. If this is all you the card for, you're $505 ahead of charging the trip on a 2% cash back card ($900 rewards less $795 annual fee plus $300 annual travel credit).
Other benefits I find useful:
$300 credit each year for travel purchases (doesn't have to be through Chase Travel).
Free subscription to Apple+ streaming.
Lounge access - Priority Pass and Chase Sapphire Lounges (one just opened here in Vegas).
$150 dining credit every six months - limited selection only in large metro areas, but there's a restaurant we like near us.
Travel insurance ($10,000 per traveler per year). Not enough to completely cover some Tauck trips, but enough that Ill risk the difference.
Rental car insurance that is primary. Saves you having to ding your personal auto insurance if you have a mishap.
There's also a $250 credit every six months towards hotels in their select (expensive) list (minimum 2 night stay). I don't expect to use this regularly, but it might get me into a nicer hotel for less money sometime.
I understand that some people value the convenience and personal relationships of booking directly through Tauck or a trusted travel agent. That's fine. For me, I'll take the extra cash back.
The important benefit for me is the $10,000 per person travel insurance, to a maximum of $20,000 (two people) per trip. Like Ken, I self insure for the rest. The Chase Sapphire Preferred card offers that same $10,000 per person travel insurance at a much lower annual card fee.
I realize the benefits they offer for booking with them, but I'll stick with my travel agent.
Mike, do you book insurance with Tauck or just top up the credit card one? I’m interesting because the price of Tauck’s cancel for any reason is one of the best value out there. We recently had to cancel with another company and even with Cancel for any reason you only get 70% of the trip price back.
I travel with companies in addition to Tauck. When you go to purchase "cancel for any reason" through a third party, it's expensive. When Chase first started with the trip insurance, you could pay half on the Reserve card and half on the Preferred card and get $20,000 per trip travel-insurance on each card (assuming you charged $20,000 on each card - otherwise the limit was what you charged on the card). So, you could get $40,000 of trip insurance "free". It was not "cancel for any reason" but that was okay.
They changed their rules so you can only file a claim on one card so the maximum for any trip is $20,000 in insurance (assuming two people)
I self-insure for the balance now.
If you consider how much I've saved by not purchasing travel insurance (self insuring) over my many trips, it's a lot more than my exposure above $20,000.
Tauck does have a good price on their trip insurance. We haven't used it in the past, but now that we're getting older, I signed up for it for our upcoming river cruise across Europe.
For me, the important benefits of the Sapphire Reserve card are the emergency evacuation and travel benefit as well as emergency medical and dental coverage. The Preferred card does not include these.
When traveling with Tauck, I take that insurance for the cancel for any reason, and also just for the convenience, which has helped in the past. When traveling with other providers (eg, ocean cruises), I just rely on the Sapphire Reserve coverage. The cost of travel isn’t nearly that as with Tauck.
After getting the $300 back from CSR spending, the net $495 fee isn’t much to pay for that insurance.
Full disclosure: I am a retired insurance exec so a bit of a nerd in that regard.
Thanks for the explanations. The vacation we canceled was cheaper than a Tauck one but we still lost around $5000. We actually looked at that as a gain in the money we received back as it was technically already gone. It was good we canceled.
It is whatever makes you comfortable.